


abridged

by neverchill



Series: to span a gap [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Background Relationships, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22659907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverchill/pseuds/neverchill
Summary: Some feelings are purely magical in nature and make Jon thrum in a predictable fuzzy pattern. He hasn't always known how to identify them, but it comes naturally now. What continues to catch his usually-fickle attention is the odd feeling that creeps under his skin whenever he peers into the flat expanse of a mirror and raises a hand to run through his hair, especially now that it's grown to a length where it can envelop his knuckles in the curls when he buries them. He hates eyes, but he stares into his own in the reflection and feels it swell.He still can't train himself to stare into the pupils long enough to see what it is that toils behind them.~i took the canon dnd classes, looked at them, said "hey thats neat" and then proceeded to not use them. welcome to gay medieval cliches central with a spin of existential dread. alternatively titled "jon is a bratty magic-wielding absolute idiot of a child for tens of chapters and really its a miracle hes lived this long".~currently: on a new schedule? apparently? every-other-tuesday? we'll see how much i can lie
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: to span a gap [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630207
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> straight away i wanna say that while i have all of this planned out, i do not actually have it written, so the 25 chapters is certainly subject to change and is just me bullshitting (and lowballing, admittedly) how much content ill get out of this whole dumbshit universe i've got rattling around in my head.
> 
> i'm bad at tagging so if anybody has any suggestions regarding that, let me know. for now, i'm going minimalist on those.
> 
> anyway-anyway, i'm gay and can't title stuff to save my life so let's see how goes. unbeta'd except by grammarly, but the shitty free version.
> 
> (warnings, pairings, tags, summary, etc are all subject to being updated at any time. sorry if that causes any frustration or confusion. past summaries and other notable changes will be put into either the beginning notes of this chapter or at the beginning of this chapter above the actual content if i run out of space - i just know i'm wishy-washy when it comes to stuff like that. unfortunately, changing the title is a little past the realm of reality, so i know i'll regret my choices for those at some point, oops.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If I'd waited until you were ready-" 
> 
> "You'd have grown out of being such a child? Goodness, Jon, I don't think that day will ever come."
> 
> "I'm going to get you fired."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anybody knows me (doubtful) they know that my writing style is heavily conversational so oops sorry

Words come in fits.

Jon has never had a particularly healthy relationship with words - the tongue he'd learned as a child he had so few of them stick that it's nearly useless, only a taste left on his palate, with no substance or context behind them. The one he's been maintaining for years - studying, listening to, intently deciphering - still has its own many boundaries. He tries again to place marks upon the paper and finds himself face-down in the book on the counter.

"Buy something or I kick you out."

Jon turns his head slightly, peeking a single eye up through the crumpled edges of his disrespected pages and his stained, rolled-up sleeve. He doesn't have to humour Tim with a word, only sends a scowl in the direction of his chest, at the shelf behind him, wherever will get the message across that he's not to be bothered with something as trivial as an exchange of coin. Tim, ever eloquent and perfectly social, sets his own head against the counter-top aside Jon's and gives him a pursed-lip look before starting again, "Why do you take it upon yourself to just... _sour_ my existence?"

"You haven't seen me _sour_ much of anything, yet." Jon finally says, and after a moment, the straight line of Tim's lips break and he barks a laugh. Jon follows his figure as he sits up and moves behind the counter - and finds those _words_ bubbling up again.

Perhaps even that grants too much serenity to the feeling. It's a boil. His fingernails itch. He sets his pen in the middle of the book and closes it, hoping the blank pages having their piercing gaze interrupted by the leather cover will make him feel better. There's something about the low rumble of quickly-settling freezing rain from above the ceiling, something about the gradient of temperature from his toes to his face, something about the way Tim's figure moves in such predictable and satisfactory ways where he reaches for the shelves too high for most to reach, a budding sense of _foreignness_ but _comfort_ , and --

Jon groans again and goes for setting his head between his arms this time, fingers curled in his hair. His critical eye has closed. This is it. This is the end of logical thought forever, here it comes, the fact that he can't lay his gaze upon anything without feeling his heart thump in his chest or without feeling so starkly and invariably aware of himself and his morality and the beauty of life and all of that absolute _shit_ is a fact he must now live with until he dies. He unfolds his elbows in front of him in a pathetic display of his helplessness and is only perked back to life when Tim sets a mug in one of his open, pleading palms.

"Please, for the love of all that is holy, get a drink in you, will you? You're depressing me."

"It’ll only make it worse." Jon peers into the cup anyway, trying not to smell it. "Being content is the opposite of what I want, at the moment."

"Ah - I see how it is. Well, if you want, I can take the piss out of you while you chug, and maybe it'll take a little bit of an edge off of that lust for life."

Jon sets the edge of the cup against his lips with a sigh and watches the ripples before he takes a drink. He knows Tim's backed him into a corner of handing to him the change in his pocket, but there is a momentary reprieve, a second of hope, before his heart again runs together just the right rivers to make him lapse into vague, wordless feelings. Something something, old cliche about alcohol, something something. Instead of setting it down, he tips his head back.

"I wasn't ready yet!"

"If I'd waited until you were ready-" There's a quip on Jon’s tongue but his throat stings and he has to wave a hand in front of his face as his eyes fill with tears. If he were a good handful of years more experienced with alcohol, perhaps it'd be embarrassing how strong his reaction happens, but as it stands, he has no remorse for his fit, even though Tim has been spending his time giving Jon his full attention just to catch what is, apparently, an amusing incident.

"You'd have grown out of being such a child? Goodness, Jon, I don't think that day will ever come."

"I'm going to get you fired,” Jon croaks.

Tim raises a hand and gestures to the open floor, the wooden tables and carved stools, and the half-deteriorated candles standing at their best attention but still unable to keep the corners of the establishment lit against the gloom outside.

"Everyone here heard you tell me, 'Tim, why don't you bring me down a tad, I've come in again feeling too happy for my own good!'. They'll back me up." He places a wide palm on the cover of Jon's book and slides it toward himself after his flourish, and Jon allows him to do so, deciding to nurse the unpleasantly sweet, unpleasantly strong mead under his nose rather than cause his face to leak from whatever orifices it can declare its incompatibility to the drink with.

Jon sniffles and raises a hand and each flame sat atop the wicks like little peering eyes brightens, bringing the visibility in the room up significantly - and revealing that the many patrons that could feasibly have been hiding in the dim light do not actually exist. The pub is entirely empty except for Tim, behind the counter in very unprofessionally casual wear, and Jon, wiping tears from one of his cheeks. The former goes flipping from the beginning of the book and finds nothing but blank pages, one after the other.

"Your novel is coming along." He says, his voice taking a much different tone to it that Jon can't quite unravel.

"It keeps coming to me, and the moment I go to take it down, it goes."

"I'll say. Where's it go?"

Jon gives a miserable sigh and shrugs.

"Thought you weren't much for fiction."

Bits of Tim always make Jon stutter and stop. His ears are more astute than he lets on, but the moment Jon begins to expect things from him, he fails in every capacity.

"It isn't fiction." What an awful accusation to have made against oneself.

Tim gives a disapproving hum and takes the pen from the centre of the book and sets the tip against the paper. Jon watches him like a hawk. Peter had given him that - well, no, that's not entirely true. It does belong to Peter, but it's such a trivial item to him that Jon's not sure he'd miss it if Jon took another, but he doesn't want to test the hypothesis. Tim flips it back and forth, evidently amused by its compartmentalized ink and determined to shake it all out. Jon clears his throat and waves an arm. Tim’s fingers stop trying to break open the ornate little thing which does not belong to him.

Daisy makes sure to inform Jon regularly that the guard has a story all their own about Jon and Peter. She still won't say what but does give him that downward-turned look whenever he prods. Not just her lips, but her brows, her eyes, all take on a sharp edge when he mentions the possibility of hearing it from her. What story she has behind her clenched teeth, she doesn't tell him. He'll extract it, eventually, but it's not the most interesting one he's heard. Some sort of political conspiracy? Perhaps he has a bias, but he rather enjoys the stories that involve nefarious deeds and dark magic, rather than ones about wandering witches and little _love stories,_ or whatever it is that Elias and Peter are doing. 

The _massacre_ sticks in his mind. She told him once, before looking odd and frustrated and clamming up, that Jon and Elias hadn’t lived within the city walls until a few months after it. The word comes to his lips each time he sees Daisy's face. _Massacre_. He has to restrain himself from simply saying it when she gives him that look - but that's what she gives him. That's what his heart sifts up to the top.

Whether or not Peter gives a damn about Jon’s safety, he certainly appears to have a spot somewhat softer for Elias - if it gets Jon a lodging on occasion, new clothes when he needs them, and whatever fancy pen he desires, he’ll let the guard think what they like. Including Daisy. He just will also hear what they have to think, whether they enjoy the song and dance he takes to get there or not.

Really, the only thing of worth that Peter ever lets Jon interact with of his is Martin, and even the amount of _worth_ in Martin is questionable.

"Okay, okay. What's so hard, then?" Tim begins to write.

Jon knows for a fact that Tim can not write. Or read, for that matter, so this act surprises him - until he switches his gaze from Tim's intent face, complete with tongue filed professionally between his lips in a display of absolute concentration - and finds that he's drawing, instead. The round shape of some sort of animal flows from the pen, making wet puddles on the page where Tim has obviously not handled an implement of this sort before. A triangle on one end, a long, swirling line on the other. He goes to draw another. Jon is entrained just long enough to make the silence between them just so long that Tim tries to look up into his eyes to stoke him into speaking again.

"If I knew, I would help you fix it, y’know?"

Tim sets the pen down and turns the book around, triumphantly, for Jon to see. It is quite obviously a rat, holding a poorly drawn mug between its hands. A splotch of ink makes it look like the rat has just spilt something dark and oily down its front.

"...Right." Jon mutters, waving a hand over the page to get it to dry before he closes it back up.

"I would! If this were about anything you knew a lot about, you'd have it done already, wouldn't you? Like making candles go bonkers or making really annoying noises."

"I suppose."

"Must be something terribly boring, then. Something pitifully plebeian."

"Exactly so."

"In which case, we all should be experts on coaching you in the ways of the whimsies of the everyday folk, shouldn't we?"

"Certainly follows."

Tim stares. Jon takes a breath and looks wherever else he can.

"I think you just don't want my help."

"What in the world gives you that idea." 

Jon shakes his head suddenly and snaps his jaw shut. His eyes flutter closed and a mumble comes to his throat, indecipherable at first but mounting in volume, as something buzzes. It starts the way most messages do - a chill at the very top of his head like someone’s spilt something on him - and then it takes control of the voice in his head and tailors it to exactly how Elias desires. The reverberation in his head thrums so hard that the sound in his head starts to bleed into the voice of his body, and:

 _“Jjjjjjjon,”_ He tilts his head,

 _“If socialisation is your prerogative, you know where I'd prefer you ...sssspend your time. You can bring your friends to the castle if it suits you. I... trust your judgement.”_ The longer Elias speaks, the easier it becomes for him to receive.

_“Your wandering back to the temple in the dark worries me. I'm coming to pick you up.”_

Tim sighs, mourning the loss of a moment of possibly fruitful banter and, knowing full well how little aware Jon is of his surroundings while Elias uses his voice, lifts the mead from his hand and takes a swig off the top before setting it back down beside Jon's book.

When Jon opens his eyes his fist is clenched around nothing and Tim has his back to him, whistling pleasantly while he sets about to calculating a total for Jon's expenses. If he didn't know better, it would seem as if Tim knows exactly what he's doing.

"You need to learn to mumble all your messages to yourself. One of these days, Elias is going to send you something like, 'You insufferable little brat, get your arse home, or I'll turn you into a toad where you stand', and you'll belt it out at the top of your lungs and scare everyone right out of the building," Tim pauses, "...He's not really coming to pick you up, is he?"

"Not if I have anything to do about it, no." Jon is already shoving his book under his coat and looking sadly into his glass before sliding it down a few seats. He procures exact change, which makes Tim's nose wrinkle - and then sets a few more copper pieces atop the counter. The look remains. Jon rolls his eyes.

"Okay. It would just look bad, is all," Tim prods.

"Oh, I'm aware."

"Not that you don't already make us look bad."

"I am _aware_ , Tim."

Tim flashes him a grin and takes the drink and finishes it off, gives it a swing to get the last drops out and onto the floor, and then sets it up with the rest of the empty cups. "Don't come back a toad, or Sasha will have my head."

"As if I could stop him."

"I think sheer force of will could keep me from becoming a toad." Tim looks at him, purses his lips thoughtfully, and nods. "Right, then. Get rained on."

Jon doesn’t give the comment the dignity of response and instead, offended, he kicks the stool he’d been sitting at.

He storms outside with just as much intensity as the weather does as he shoves the heavy doors open. The streets are dark, any mundane light snuffed by the downpour. Even under the awnings, puddles encroach over the cobbles in inky rivers. Leather-rotting, horseshit-gathering, extremity-freezing little rivers. Jon steps over them as well as he can, raising a hand and snapping his fingers. Between the skin of his digits, a light blooms and settles under his skin, crawls up his arm under his sleeve It gives him enough light to walk by and blurs his shape against the reflective, harsh droplets that pelt the streets. As incredibly much as he desires to do anything but cut Elias off before he can reach the pub, he knows how most of the townsfolk think of him, and he’d rather go the same way home he always does - give the old man a way to find him before having to go around asking after him.

Tim may be a shithead, but he doesn't deserve the complications that come along with Elias' presence - at least, he hadn't quite earned it tonight. The possibility still remains that someday, Jon will grow to hate him so much, that he'll just get drunk and wallow until Elias comes to drag him back to the temple.

As silly and cliche as it sounds, he would actually be fairly horrified if Elias were to turn anyone into any sort of small animal, including Tim. Could he ever possibly hate a man so much as to subject himself to the torture of watching that person be contorted into a tiny, ugly, groaning creature? Maybe. His disgust at the thought, though, does provoke the question in him he’s heard many times, each by someone different, in tones of fear and disgust and incredulity and even reverence: ... _Can Elias do that?_

Jon certainly can't, but there are a number of spells that Elias keeps from him. With the amount of grave respect and backstabbing gossip spread evenly among the people of the kingdom in regards to Elias Bouchard, the little show tricks that he's let Jon grasp and wrestle with can't be the extent of his power.

The rumours that surround his guardian are the same that surround any witch. This should be fine, but a number of those rumours happen to include Jonathan as well, much to his chagrin. The leading theory around the castle, as reported by Martin one day, is that Jon is an illusion acting as a figurehead for Elias to set his eyes where they don't belong. Jon doesn't entirely doubt the validity of part of the statement but also resents the idea that so many somewhat educated people believe that he's simply not human. He grasps so desperately to the same humanity that everyone around him shares, it's not his fault that his hands miss the holds.

He's nearly to the third turn - there's a right into the alley, a left to avoid a dead end, and another right to exit the tight space - when his lit forearm raised above his head suddenly grows cold as dark tendrils begin to curl around his wrist. 

Jon yelps and turns to wrench away, but he's already firmly in the grip. He opens his mouth to yell, being so near to the empty street, but a voice comes over the top of his own and only serves to shut his brain off completely as a dread even colder than the initial one sets into his stomach.

" _Jon_." Elias' voice hisses against him. Elias releases Jon's wrist. Really, it's no miracle or wonder of Elias' size that he is able to reach all the way around one of Jon's arms with a single hand, but the gesture goes quite a distance to making Jon feel small. "I told you I was coming to get you. Why won't you just let me walk you home?" Jon can feel Elias' eyes searching him in the dark, despite his own still adjusting to the darkness. "What have you spilt all over yourself?"

Jon sputters.

"Well, then?"

"I-"

Elias sighs and pulls an arm over Jon's shoulder, easily enveloping him completely. There's an odd slather of emotions that comes with it, and Jon entirely expects his fingernails to itch again, but the feeling under his skin has subsided. "I was visiting friends.”

Despite the nerves under his tongue, his voice maintains its bite.

"I know," Elias says, sounding vaguely disappointed, but mostly distant. Jon nearly trips over something that Elias steps over but is saved by the guiding arm over him.

"I didn't know it was going to rain." The excuse feels lame the moment it leaves him, but Jon sticks to it, trying to force his eyes to see the road ahead of him. Elias takes familiar turns. Jon blinks against the water running into his eyes.

"If you went up to the castle to play with your friends, you could have stayed inside all night."

"I'm not- I'm not _playing_ with them."

"Visiting, yes. Excuse the invalid verb, I'm frustrated."

"I was able to see until you turned my light off."

"You were able to see, and the whole town was able to see you."

"The difference is that they put upwith me."

Elias laughs. Jon frowns and turns until he's drying his face on Elias' side. Ought to teach him.

The leading theory among the townsfolk, according to Sasha, is that Jon is a complicated familiar made to look like a human boy as a show of Elias' magical power, to confuse the townspeople, and to gain the sympathy of the king. As Jon shoves his wet face into Elias' warm flank as a cat might, he sees himself lending credibility to this theory. He certainly feels like a beast on occasion, but if he was nothing but a spirit meant to serve Elias, well - Elias has done a poor job of tethering him and made a grave mistake of giving him enough of his own will to refuse a variety of requests, despite being told plainly to do them and vice-versa. Aside from this, the idea that Elias would create him in such an image doesn't sit well. Why in the world would he mould Jon into this - both to confuse and intimidate? Jon is confusing, sure, but far from intimidating, and assuming the average peasant would gaze upon him and immediately be reverent to Elias’ power is absurd and something that has never once happened, as far as Jon is aware.

"It's been days, Jon. Is it so bad I want you to be at the temple by the time the sun sets?"

"Considering each fairytale witch I've read about curses people by phases of the moon or the position of the sun and what-have-you, I think so, yes." Jon’s voice is muffled by Elias’ shirt.

"I only want you home before the sun in the winter. People die out here, you know."

"It's not winter."

"It could snow at any time. That’s my definition of winter."

Jon grunts in vague disagreement. If Elias catches the disingenuous sound of acknowledgement, he doesn't say anything about it.

He's not even particularly intelligent. People seem to think that Elias is some sort of genius, or that he's terrifying, or that he's cruel. It's been nearly two decades and Jon, despite gaps, remembers very little heavy-handedness in Elias' techniques on keeping a child under his control. That small amount of kindness lent to him isn’t meant to speak to his overall good nature. He is, also, very easy to manipulate. His intelligence is lacking. Jon has never once been caught before or in the midst of sneaking out - only after he’s gone has Elias ever sent him any message or shown him any frustration.

Jon's eyes are just beginning to adjust when he catches the outline of the temple's doors with torchlight flickering behind them. It’s eerie in the dark and rain, but the heavy grey glow of the clouds in the sky lets its silhouette sit stark in its stonework. The shape means many things, but warm and dry are at the top of Jon’s list at the moment.

Elias leads him inside, raising a hand and touching the doors and then watching as they bow and open on their own. Jon doesn't intend on sticking around him much more than necessary, but Elias follows him in and to the stairs on the flank of the room filled with its benches and shallow stairs. He only quits trailing him when he goes to wash, apparently afraid that Jon will be gone when he comes back for him. Jon lights the candles in the hallway on the second floor. His room, centred above the altar holding the font, has its own wet trail led to and from it as he retrieves a set of clothes.

His room in the temple is bare bones. It’s beautiful in its own sort of way, but it’s not meant to be a room for a child to stay, necessarily. The bed is ill-fitting against a window with leaking wooden shutters stuffed with cloth to keep the cold out, which would lead him to complain about its placement if it didn’t take up all of the space left after his desk.

His desk, with its carefully filed books and scrolls and parchments of all sizes and scraps and his delicate writing implements, and now houses his change, journal, and pen. He’d rather not have any of that exposed to the elements. His dresser is also one of his few cherished things. He doesn’t have a preference for what he looks like, really, but changing into clothes that aren’t soaked through or covered in mould is one of a few things he takes genuine pleasure in.

He holds all of his clothes at arm’s length to keep them from getting wet as he heads back down to send himself through the wash. The rain has done an alright job of keeping him clean, but he does get a bucket to rinse off his front. His shirt and chest smell like mead, though he can't remember spilling it.

While he washes up, there is a knock. Jon kicks the door. Elias doesn’t try again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you going to die?"  
> Jon doesn’t dignify Martin with an answer at first, but then feels a pang of anxiety about a potential misunderstanding and rolls his eyes.  
> “No, I’m not going to die."

Elias was right - two nights ago, after Jon had gotten himself curled into bed, the pelting rain had begun to freeze into little pellets of ice. Slowly, as he listened, they had relaxed. At first, with his face shoved into his damp pillow, he’d thought it was over, but after lying there longer and feeling the cold hit his back and creep over the back of his neck, he’d turned and used a heel to turn the louvres, but gotten a glimpse of the grey-white blanket on the stone overhang outside his window instead of a wet street. And so the snow has stayed, just as the weather has stayed sharp and cold and grey. It threatens to fall again but hasn’t made good on its promise just yet, not since Jon’s been back in the keep.

Not on Elias' request, though he had asked Jon to go. No, Jon had made absolutely sure that Elias had no idea he had any intention of leaving before he had. Not for any particular reason - he just finds that he deals with a great deal less anxiety when he knows that Elias has no earthly clue where he is.

This time when he wakes, it’s to grey light through the frosted glass, to the foot of his bed freezing, to curling into the smallest ball he can manage in the very middle of his large mattress and shoving his face underneath the nearest pillow to keep the slowly growing sounds of bustling help as the morning waxes. The bed had been comfortable the night before, but by the time he'd woken up, the bedwarmer was just a hunk of freezing metal between his sheets for him to curl away from.

What a boon it is, though, to have woken himself up this morning, rather than anyone else barging in like an _animal_.

It’s taken him until now to really remember what Martin’s schedule is, and how much effort it takes to keep up with it. He wants to wait with one arm over his head, trying to blot out the light and sound, until Martin comes around again - it would be nothing he’d never seen before, Jon with hair finally just long enough to meet the strings of drool, but a single experience of it is more than enough to fulfil Jon’s quota of being absolutely mortified for at least the rest of his stay, preferably the rest of his life, so he slinks out of bed and makes a mad scramble to beat Martin’s internal clock. He’s tucking his shirt into his trousers when the knock comes and, being eager to let the bastard know that he hasn’t caught him off guard this time, Jon gives him a loud affirmative grunt. The door clicks. Under Jon’s careful eye, Martin’s head peeks from behind it.

“You…” Martin clears his throat and takes half of a step into the bedroom, “Don’t usually look as awful when I come in, are you feeling alright?”

“I, well.” Jon hesitates, buttons his shirt, and sticks his nose in the air, “May not have fed the font before I left.”

 _Take that, with your not-thinking-I-look-presentable._ Jon sends a glance down at himself briefly. He looks alright, doesn't he?

“Your magic thingy?” Martin is still only the top half of a head from behind a heavy wooden door.

“Yes, my _magic thingy_ ,” Jon hisses and looks to his desk - what he has very creatively dubbed in Tim’s destructive wake the _Rat Book_ sits atop it with his pen over the cover. He could write, but he’s not feeling anything. Then again, maybe the best way to start is to… just start, even if he isn’t feeling anything at the moment. “My _conduit_ , you know - so I don’t _die_.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean - I just wasn’t sure what to call it. You coming for breakfast?”

“It’s fine. It’s - well, it is a magic thing. I’m not sure there’s much a reason for someone uninclined to know what one is, necessarily. ...And, uh, yes.”

“Well, I’ve heard you speak of it, and feeding it, and whatnot. But it doesn’t bump it up from thingy status.”

“...Right.” 

“Are you going to die?”

Jon doesn’t dignify him with an answer at first, but then feels a pang of anxiety about a potential misunderstanding, and rolls his eyes, joining Martin at the door, “No, I’m not going to die. I’ll go back down to the temple and do what I need. In the snow.”

Martin nods as if this isn’t spoken with as much bitterness as Jon can manage, knowing that one of few things Jon’s grasp is weak on is sarcasm, and tilts his head. He takes a breath and begins to speak, but stops. Jon gives him a moment.

And quickly gets bored. He huffs and goes to push past him into the hall when Martin takes another breath, this time finishing his thought, “You’ve been talking to people lately, haven’t you?”

Jon looks up at him. When Martin doesn’t want to be moved, he will not be moved. It’s unlikely to believe that just a two year age gap has placed Martin a head and shoulders above Jon, as many of him side by side to fill the doorway, and with enough strength to keep the door half shut even if Jon were to put his entire weight into fighting this fact - and so, Jon has had to resolve with himself the fact he will never scrape two metres.

“I… have.”

He’s not _scared_ of Martin.

“About Peter?”

He has never been _scared_ of Martin. Blank, immovable Martin.

“Among other things.”

Martin purses his lips and looks down at him and then out into the hallway, before he steps into the grey, sparsely decorated room and closes the door behind him, “I think we should talk about that, too. After breakfast! Of course, and maybe we can have some tea and - well, I could walk you back down to the temple, or get- well-”

“After plodding down the stairs, at least granting me the ability to take my _horse_ would be top, thanks, Martin.”

“Well, Georgie’s- You haven’t been around for a little while, I-”

This is it! This is the end. Jon may as well have died. He rubs his temples and goes to gather his book to make the journey when Martin makes the decision that he’s going to make himself as comfortable as possible, because of course, why would Martin make any accommodation to make sure Jon isn’t absolutely bothered by every minute detail of the room.

Jon looks up from tucking his pen into the poorly-sewn spine of the journal and wonders if Martin comes in here even when he isn’t around and sits in... _that_ spot, with as calmly he slips into it.

That spot where he can use one hand to pick at the mortar around the window, sat in the deep sill that’s carved to keep the cold from encroaching onto the rest of the room. He has his cheek resting against his knee that he’s pulled against his chest. Despite being only centimetres from where the snow’s cold is seeping, Martin seems relaxed and comfortable in his place. Jon could fit into it in his stead easily - maybe even spread his legs out a little, but Martin sitting there gives him a slightly claustrophobic feeling just looking at him. Despite, he seems serene.

“You’re usually… fresher when you come back. I thought I had some time. He’s doing fine, he’s just - well, he’s not used to going into town, really, Georgie’s been taking him out just around the keep, you know?” Martin says, raising a hand to scratch at his chin.

“I highly doubt a fortnight is enough for Admiral to _forget who I am_.”

Martin looks as if he’s at a loss for words and stutters for a moment before he huffs. Jon can feel his cheeks heating up and his brows furrowing as Martin casts his gaze out the frosted window. “It’s been longer than that! And he’s not forgotten you, he just - We’ll see, alright? We’ll see.”

Jon’s been busy. Time is a construct that hardly registers with him once he’s gotten something on his list to do, and when each person he’s spoken to has led him to another and another, spinning a web of contacts, each thread he needs to keep straight in his head, well - However long he’s been gone, evidently, turns itself into a fortnight. He tries to count the vivid memories of each night’s sleep. The expanse of the bed lies between them, crumpled and unmade from Jon’s final descent into some sort of sleep for the first time in a few nights. That's one of the nights. Now, what order were the others in? His eyes keep falling to the handle of the bedwarmer and the blanket that's three-quarters removed from the top of the bed.

With Martin evidently apprehensive and unwilling to get moving just yet and the fact he could use a few more moments to decipher how much danger he’s in, Jon sets Rat Book aside and gets to pressing the crumpled sheets and pushing things back into their proper places. Removing any metal bits that could impale him, he then lies over it on his stomach and tries to reach the other end of the bed, stretched onto the tips of his toes with the sheet's end grasped in his fingers, “I’ve been busy.” A very intelligent response to the accusation.

Martin watches him struggle for all of ten seconds before he stands from the hollow and comes to take the edge of the sheet from Jon’s hands and tucks it for him.

“You like busy.”

That’s true.

“It was… temple-busy.”

“Mmm.” Martin sounds almost empathetic. It’s a good try. Jon can’t tell if it’s patronizing or not. He can’t tell if it pisses him off or not. “I… I do like to hear about your temple-busy. I do.” Martin looks up at him from where he’d been continuing to take over the bed-making for Jon, despite the fact the smaller of the two is still perched with one knee and both palms on the mattress. He gives Jon’s foundation a tug, pulling at the sheets underneath him. Jon clenches his jaw and grits his teeth and stands his ground, even as he’s pulled around this way and that. There’s no hint of amusement in Martin’s face, but Jon can feel himself becoming frustrated with what mirth he’s projecting onto the blank slate of his childhood friend’s expression.

“I sense a ‘however’.”

“But,” Martin gives a sharp tug on the sheet. Jon loses his balance. “It’s… gone off, a little. You going around and asking people questions, I mean. I thought you’d like to know.”

Jon rolls off the bed, and Martin apparently loses some interest in making it for him as soon as the fun of terrorizing is gone. 

“Could you just - let me do a...” Martin does the unthinkable and _sits_ on the edge of the bed. Jon peeks just over the mattress from his spot on the floor with a glare. Martin stares him down, expectantly, and when he gets nothing but a contemptuous gaze, he continues, “You know! Whatever it is you’ve been calling it. Statement?”

Jon’s brows relax a little, and then a lot, and then he rolls his eyes, like he’s just realized how silly he’s been, and stands. “I’ve got room for more notes if you’re asking me to interrogate you like a criminal.”

“Exactly, thank you.”

Jon’s shoulders drop in relief and he sighs.

He’s been at the castle for a few nights now. He has vivid memories of being a small child being dropped off at the keep for weeks at a time. His room then felt larger, but was really of a much more diminutive size, and also home to an annoying flatmate. Said flatmate is now just as annoying, only much, much larger, and much less explosive. He demonstrates this by lying back on Jon’s unmade bed, halfway crooked, one knee propped up and one arm under the back of his head, still mechanically staring at Jon’s every movement. Martin has always been an absolute nightmare to share a space with.

Jon would really rather he leave. He keeps getting hot flashes between the whorls of his fingerprints, keeps hearing the exactly perfect words to put down into his new project, but of course, Martin is there the moment the sun comes up to make its high round above the ice. Little moving shadows touch Martin’s far flank as he sits up. The baubles Jon has set alight bumbling near the ceiling force him to notice that on his own skin, little wobbling lines of light and reflections settle and dance. He needs this on paper immediately, but there are more important things to take down.

Martin is staring at the ceiling, his expression unchanged from the vaguely worried look he’d donned when he’d come in.

“Are you about done not helping?” Jon’s frown deepens, and Martin is silent for a moment before heaving a sigh.

“Sure.”

People call Jon the soulless familiar, but the moment he’s no longer being given the satisfaction of reaction, Martin begins to dutifully make up the bed just how it had been the day before. Once Martin has taken care of tidying entirely on his own accord, he finally places his much more common and much more approachable visage for the journey to the dining hall. To Martin’s credit, he’s not exactly exclusive in who it is he serves. Any moment and one can be liable to find Martin doing whatever it is the nearest person has asked of him. Not much of a prince. Not much of even a bastard _pretending_ to be a prince.

It’s this indiscriminate attitude, Jon tells himself, that so often keeps him from trusting Martin with sensitive things, even when such issues could benefit from Martin’s help. One of these things he’s yet to allow Martin any information upon is the fact that, standing at the top of the stairs, Jon can feel the heat of magic that normally flutters through his veins start to seize and pool like it’s freezing in the cold.

When he drains to Elias' font first, visits second, the stairs give him some trouble, but nothing he can’t power through - when he hasn’t bothered to feed the vessel in days, the moment he’s not walking on a flat surface, he is, once again, convinced - this is it. This is where he dies.

Martin heads on in front of him.

Elias’ explanation of the situation is one that Jon’s ever-curious mind has yet to take in completely. Something to do with magic manifestations. It’s his own personal theory that it’s an injury being covered up with magic, or something of the like. Magic has never done anything to hurt him, as far as he can feel, and when his veins thrum and he mumbles incantations, there’s nothing in him that feels anything less than perfectly powerful. His right leg can piss off with its so-called ‘magical affliction’. And the way he feels directly after ‘feeding’ Elias’ font brings him pages and pages of sceptical notes ready to slip from his fingers - all criticisms he keeps quiet to himself and his books until a cohesive story comes together across all the pages.

It’s not unheard of for Jon to stay in the keep longer than his condition allows, and he can feel the way Martin glances at him to make sure he’s making it along.

He’s not normally opposed to having people know. It’s not any dent to the air of educated danger he’s carefully cultivated - if it were, people wouldn’t be nearly as afraid of Elias as they are, what with his vision having the same pattern of normalcy and disrepair. And they _do_ fear Elias.

He just doesn’t like it when Martin looks at him like that. It makes him nervous. He searches for pity on the back of Martin’s eyes but can’t find it. That’s something.

The hall stories down is a large room that’s been multipurposed out of serving banquets and into serving food for any number of people who happen to be around at any number of hours in which they can request a meal or a break for tea. Martin pulls a chair out for him. He always pulls a chair out for him, despite having that expression as if he’d rather be doing anything else. Jon sits, without uttering a thank-you.

The room is huge and nearly completely empty. Terrifyingly large, he remembers he used to think as a child. Jon at five had only ever been attuned to sitting on the steps or the floor with Elias not two feet from his side, no table to speak of, picking at food with his fingers. Jon at seventeen finds himself easily slipping into the role of sitting up straight, his fingers folded at the table with Martin across from him.

Jon taps the centre mark on the table between the two of them. The wood’s grain fills slowly with light. Being able to see Martin’s bland body language doesn’t often provide him much insight, but if he’s going to be gathering the information, he’d like it to be as complete as possible, the image burnt into his eyes as crisp and bright as he can have it.

“You said you had something to tell me about my notes.”

Martin frowns, “You want me to tell you here?”

“If the whole ordeal has got on all the way back up to here even with me being careful, why not have the conversation over breakfast? At least it’s comfortably warm in here. I’m not doing it on horseback or in front of Georgie, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I suppose at the temple is a no, as well.”

“Absolutely not. Elias’ ears needn’t catch a word of it.”

“Right,” Martin’s shoulders rise and fall, his eyes dipping to the swirling light in the wood grain. “Ah, what spell is this?”

“I suppose we aren’t doing this, then.”

“No! No, we are, Jon, I just - Food, first?”

There’s a simmering stage to Jon’s note-taking. He lets the information permeate, after spending however long his topic desires speaking of it. The talking, skimming, diving, prodding - these are preliminary collection methods. What really sticks with him, he’s found, after he gives it time to settle, is the information that had made his fingers twitch. What had given him a strike of fear or interest or anger. And, with spells, these pieces that remain in his head are ones that carry out each magically woven speech, every nab and tug of the thread, and carry out what he needs - even with pieces missing.

On his shelf in the temple are transcriptions of spells, as originally written. On the shelves at the pub are journal after journal of statements and spells, all pulled together after the date of their arrival, and abridged by Jonathan Bouchard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ”Shush. I’m saying I’m convinced he’s been tipped off.”  
> ”Tipped off to what! God, Jon. He’s not about to lop your head off.”  
> ”I don’t know! I’ve read books, Martin, I know what kings do to people who ask questions, or whatever.”

”Told you he’d be happy to see me.”

Martin makes a noise of disinterest and vague, sceptical acknowledgement, and Jon rolls his eyes. The top of his head barely grazes the steed’s nose - which isn’t much a statement about the horse’s height and more of Jon’s.

Admiral more resembles Georgie than Jon, actually. Tall, sturdy, dark, with a curling mane. Dusty most of the time. She tends to smell a bit better, Martin’s vaguely aware, but beyond that much, they’re both particularly notable for their strength outstanding their gentle looks. Jon is all sharp, proper middle-tones, straight and exact angles. Nevertheless, he insists the horse is of joint ownership.

He knows it’s a little silly, but he’s attached. There’s something very nice about the fact that upon setting a palm on Admiral’s nose he gives a slow swivel of his ears and raises his head into the hand. It’s sweet.

”He’s nicer than I am.” Georgie leans heavily into the horse’s side. He takes up a hoof and sets it back down, readjusting against her and turning his head to check on her instead of paying attention to Jon. The latter scowls. Georgie has a half-smile appear from behind a flank. ”I guess you didn’t throw a hissy fit at him last time before you left, though, did you?”

”Wasn’t a  _ hissy fit _ , it was self-preservation that got a bit loud,” Jon counters, turning back to look at Martin, who sighs and dodges the glare to finish saddling his own horse instead.

Very princely-like.

Jon turns back to Georgie and waves his hands to shoo her away from  _ his _ horse. ”You know, someone told Peter I was asking about him. You wouldn’t know much about that, would you?”

Georgie has a hollow stare for a moment before she chuckles and steps aside just long enough for Jon to stand beside the horse and, being a fair bit shorter than would be convenient, and having his dominant leg sore, turns back to her for assistance. She offers him a shoulder to hold onto. ”No, I wouldn’t. As far as I knew, you were getting absolute shite for information.”

”I was,” Jon grunts, pulling himself into the saddle and sighing as he settles. Admiral’s ears cup as far back as he can get them like he’s trying to eavesdrop. ”Which is why it’s a tad weird that he got on my business about it.”

”Peter got on you about it?”

”Well.”

Stood Martin next to Jon, Admiral and Chivalry follow a very different analogy, with Martin’s horse being much lighter in all senses of the word, though just as much of a perfect doormat. She doesn’t bother to stick her head between the mess that’s taking place, only stands just outside of the conversational sphere. Martin has to lean to get the unamused look on his face across to everyone attending.

”He didn’t get on  _ anything _ , he was just asking around, is all.” Martin says, and Jon feels a bloom of frustration in his cheeks.

”He asked you about me, Martin. If he wanted to know about something inconsequential - I don’t know, my  _ studying _ \- he wouldn’t have gone to  _ you _ .”

”Well, you tell me plenty about your studying.”

”I tell you plenty about plenty, that’s not the point.”

Georgie makes a little crooning sound, ”I’m sure you do.”

”Shush. I’m saying  _ I’m  _ convinced he’s been tipped off.”

”Tipped off to what! God, Jon. He’s not about to lop your head off,” Martin defends, and Jon only grows more angry, knuckles white as he balls his fists and raises his shoulders, ”I don’t know! I’ve read  _ books _ , Martin, I know what kings do to people who ask questions, or whatever.”

Martin groans and Georgie starts to laugh again, giving Admiral a few more appreciative pats before she gives him a shove toward the open door into the grey noon, ”Peter wouldn’t.”

”He absolutely would,” Jon retorts, scrambling for the reigns to try to get Admiral to stop his slow descent toward the street. He has much more to say to Georgie, but Martin turns Chivalry until she’s blocking the way back into the stable and follows Admiral out, making Jon vocalize in frustration.

”He really wouldn’t,” Martin says to him again as they step out onto the dirty snow.

Jon is silent for a moment and instead of arguing side-by-side takes the lead away from Martin’s grasp. They will move through the town at his pace and go his way if they can’t navigate a conversation in the way he wants them to. He  _ will  _ have it one way or the other.

The courtyard is well-travelled, and some of the walkways from building to building within the castle walls have been cleared of snow. The tower Martin, Jon, and the rest of the more important folk spend their time have delicate, exact lines where it’s been magically removed. The ones their horses plod over have scuff marks of shovels and freshly relocated gravel over the ice and other precipitate. During the spring and summer, when it’s not muggy or raining heavily, it’s not an unpleasant sight, though it could be more orderly. As it stands, the cobbles swivel and wander, the landscaping slopes and drapes over walkways, fences start and stop at odd times, trellises cover seemingly uncoordinated swathes of stone and wood. Maybe it looks nice to someone who finds their peace in utter disarray, but mostly it looks messy and wild and dangerously twisting. As a child, when Elias insisted upon taking him up to the castle whenever he went to visit, Jon remembers vividly that in any other place, he would take any opportunity to wander away. Not in the courtyard. Too many eyes, too many people, too many ways to get lost in the jungle.

In late winter, it’s dead from ground to treetop, a display of black and grey veins.

He likes it this way much better in terms of the ability to see from one end to the other. In terms of how absolutely desolate it feels… That gives him a moment of trepidation. Stupid. There’s not a single place in this whole country he’s ever been that doesn’t feel  _ stupid _ as its main, defining feature.

Admiral knows his way down the trail along the outer wall, around toward the city centre. The streets get craggier the further from the castle they travel. At the gates, they’re given a cursory glance but no more. Stupid. Maybe he’s wrong - maybe Peter had a moment of benevolent worry about Jon’s wellbeing.

Hah.

Sure would explain the fact that nobody is paying him any mind. Not the amount of mind as a treasonous criminal might be given, anyway. It shouldn’t worry him, but it makes him antsy.

Jon refocuses himself on the road. Admiral walks with great, high-stepped confidence while Chivalry saunters on behind, her head held only as high as is absolutely necessary, with Martin watching idly to the middle of the streets. He’s paying little attention, a touch of worry drawn on his face pooled between his eyebrows.

Jon’s head hurts, right between his eyes. The skin of his face is stiff and frozen when they round the southwestern wall and curl their way back through the tight streets toward the temple. It doesn’t feel any warmer, but the put-out torches setting outside the pubs and shops have left little patches of water among the wet snow’s otherwise trampled-but-untouched blanket. The temple, however, is eerily pristine.

A set of boot tracks lead from the side of the building eastward. Another comes about three metres from the front doors. Jon can almost  _ see  _ Elias walking out, standing at the end of the footsteps, and staring off with his pinched expression as he follows Jon’s trail with his eyes. Heaves a sigh, and then turns right back around and goes inside.

Fantastic.

The magical lights that cast very little in the daylight, even with cloud cover, are cool and leave the snow with its upper layer entirely intact. The temple hasn’t been used for orthodox forms of worship for many years. If any civilian has approached, they’ve left no trace. Not even bird or rat prints muss the scene.

Admiral is more than happy to leave his mark first as Jon leads him around the side. Martin follows dutifully, and as soon as he sees Jon begin to dismount, lifts with ease out of his saddle and hurries over to offer an arm for assistance.

Say what you’d like about Martin Lukas, but he is not the tiniest amount afraid of Elias Bouchard. This lends him a bit of credibility, in Jon’s opinion - even after plainly seeing that Elias has not left the temple since the last snow, Martin shows no hesitation in staying right on Jon’s heels after settling the horses into the half-fenced hollow in the back. There might be a few defiled graves buried under the snow and overgrown thicket. That’s what they do in the backs of old temples, isn’t it?

Still, Martin isn’t exactly sharp, either.

”Elias is somewhere around,” Jon warns as he takes the front steps as many at a time as he can manage, which is nearly all of them at once. Just in case.

”I noticed,” Martin says, ”He shouldn’t be a problem, should he?”

”Out of all the things I do, feeding the font is one of the few he has no issue with,” Jon says, feeling almost amused with himself. It occurs to him it might be a bit childish to relish frustrating his guardian so much. Unfortunately for that feeling, he doesn’t care. If he enjoys being childish in such a regard, so be it.

Martin makes a short grunt of a noise and pulls the door shut behind them, still made light and manoeuvrable with the spell Jon had woven into the wood moments earlier.

In the daylight, it’s easier to get a feel for the temple’s layout for one unfamiliar. It’s fairly geometric, square-like in shape, with a rounded end housing the slightly raised, flat platform that atop sits the font. With the carved pews and benches that radiate outward in a grid, Jon can deduce from images in books that the font itself is a new addition.

Not to mention the fact that the rest of the temple is hewn in a slate-grey stone, made simply and elegantly, and the font is large, dark, ornate, and powerful. A metre tall and a half metre in diameter, it is the only thing that remains on what, in most illustrations, shows a decorated throne to whatever deity it had originally been erected in service to.

Normally, this wide open space is comforting in its uniformity. He feels a strange unease prickling under his skin, though, and apparently, Martin feels it as well - as there’s an uncharacteristic stutter to his sentence when he begins to speak, ”Feed it how?”

Jon only grunts and drags himself toward it, walking up through the central aisle. The curved wall behind the font used to have stained glass. It’s been broken out and replaced with brick and mortar, making this end of the temple dark and wet, except for the lights Elias has affixed here and there, symmetrical and in watchful pairs.

He doesn’t mean for Martin to follow, but he hears the ever-present scuff of the other’s boots behind him as he makes his way to the font. That’s fine. It’s not dangerous.

Not as far as he knows.

”Elias must be upstairs, then?” Martin asks again, trying to fill the silence, catching on to how sparsely talkative Jon has fallen.

Jon steps up the rise to the platform. His sinuses feel too large for his head, and Martin isn’t helping. He closes his eyes and runs his hand from a smooth, palm-sized groove from the stem of the fountain-shaped metal chunk of the horrific magical instrument. Directly between his middle and ring finger, one of the barbs catches.

No blood flows from him as he raises his hand and settles it in the bottom of the shallow basin on top, fingers curled slightly at the apex of the bowl.

It’s a feeling without equal. He’s surprised that, with how antsy he’s been to put the indescribable on paper lately, the sensation doesn’t send him spiralling into a conviction of the world’s wonderful benevolence, or whatever other shite he’s been stewing on.

The pressure, the cold frozen sloshing half-thick magic that’s been building and solidifying in his muscles and in his joints and inside the cavity of his skull starts to mellow. Slowly at first, and then all the rest all at once, and he groans and sighs and sets his now-empty forehead against the front rim of the basin.

Pain feels again like a distant looming terror rather than something that lives under his skin, emotions like they’re simply casting their shadows over him rather than coiling their strings around his wrists and guiding him, thoughts as if they’re entirely his own and just the right amount to fit inside of his head.

”Is it safe to come up, then? You’re done?”

Jon stares into the font, removes his hand, and shakes it out. A spark curls from his fingertips and eats up the oily shine left on his fingers before he turns back around and shrugs.

”Come find out.”

Martin steps up to join him, standing a little less than an arm’s length away from the ghastly contraption, running his eyes over it. ”Could cut you something awful,” he notes. Jon opens his palm and looks down at it with a bit of apprehension - he’s been doing this routinely for years, and knows what to look for - or, rather, what not to. His pale, creased palm is intact. He curls his fingers. They are, too.

”If you were an idiot with it, I suppose,” Jon says, dismissing the shallow feeling of concern that permeates him.

”How does it work?”

”It’s to do with magic, Martin.”

”I’ve read plenty of your manuscripts.”

”Doesn’t mean you understand magic,” Jon snaps, but does a bit of a re-enactment - pulls his hand up the groove and stops short of the barb.

”It eats out of your hand?”

”Yes, Martin, like a  _ dog _ .”

”You know what I meant. Does it have to be so creepy?”

”It needs to be sharp. And I suppose it’s... Some sort of godly thing. Made in some image.”

Martin’s lips quirk into a frown. Jon battles back some amusement at the expression. Not much draws this much out of Martin, and he’s enjoying it quite a bit. ”That’s disgusting.”

”It doesn’t draw blood.”

”May as well have, if it jabbed you!”

”If it were adjusting my humours I wouldn’t be  _ nearly _ as thrilled to play around with it. It most definitely does not want my blood. If it did, it’d be… well, gross-er.” He’s starting to see what Martin means by his being in a better mood after visiting home because the amount of words he’s willing to exchange to him without also having the urge to spit in his face has increased dramatically in the last few moments. As much as he’d love to use all of that new time all the way up until Martin makes him want to gouge his eyes out, Elias is still afoot, and he still needs time to get Martin’s statement about -

”Could have sworn it was different when we were kids.”

Jon blinks up at him, ”Is that right? Didn’t think I did it as a child.”

”You didn’t, not at first, but I mean when you did.”

Jon rolls his eyes, ”I  _ didn’t  _ but I  _ did  _ and when I  _ did- _ ”

Martin gives him a scowl and uses a balled fist to hit Jon in the shoulder, to which the latter snorts a laugh and waves him away, ”You’re misremembering. It’s always been equally as scary and equally as awful.”

”I guess I just always imagined it was very bloody and traumatising. Elias always seemed so upset about it.”

Jon’s easy, grin-squished eyes snap back to their usual scowl. ”Elias couldn’t possibly give less of a damn even if it did mutilate me. Like I said, I think he likes it when I do it, if anything. Speaking of which, quit assaulting me, and let’s go. We’ve got a stop to make.”

”Not sure where I got the terrible image, then,” Martin muses, taking a step closer to the font and looking it over with a face made up entirely of vague curiosity before he retreats down the aisle, again staying on Jon’s heels.

”You were a child, you were scared of the big bad metal thing. And Elias, probably.”

”I don’t know. Nine’s about when you stop being scared of everything, isn’t it?” Jon snorts without any mirth and sets a hand on the door, giving Martin the gesture to open it for him. He does as he’s instructed. He  _ wishes _ he’d stopped being afraid of everything at any point, be it nine or ten or eleven or seventeen. 

He turns to Martin with the thread of a retort around his tongue, mouth fixed into a sneer to deliver, ”Jon: No goodbye?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin clicks his tongue and thinks for all of a short, polite moment before he says, "Ah, sure. We're not in a rush, are we?"
> 
> Martin's lack of fear of Elias means only that his disposition toward him is skewed in the second most annoying direction, being apathy with a superficial, performative veil of respect. Respect that evidently, as thin as it is, still involves sitting down to tea with him when asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my shift key lives  
> the last few chapters i've had to use special characters to then later find-and-replace with copy/pasted shift-requiring symbols, but hey! new keyboard!
> 
> also I'M back! weekly updates again for at least two more weeks is what i predict?

A good mood is a fragile thing. In Martin, they're characterized entirely and only by a lack of active vitriol. In Jon, they're preceded by circumstances that mean, for whatever reason though usually predictably magic-related in nature, his head is clear and his body only hurts sort of and he's not sitting alone in a dark room siphoning his life into a flickering light to hold onto. Additionally, that circumstance almost always has to also exclude Elias, which is where the moment now is hitting a snag.

"Is Martin with you? Does he want tea? I'll be down in a minute."

Jon's attempts to grit his teeth are so strong that the moment Elias' spell loses him, his jaws clack together painfully and he whines, raising a hand to touch his jaw. Martin's eyes move from Jon's face to the stairwell behind the dark outlines of pillars, as he pulls the door closed again, his hair fluttering as the wave of chill is shut off suddenly, painfully. What he’d give to be out in the grey and the snow. Jon withstands the silence for a handful of seconds before, "Well? He asked you a question."

Martin clicks his tongue and thinks for all of a short, polite moment before he says, "Ah, sure. We're not in a rush, are we?"

Martin's lack of fear of Elias means only that his disposition toward him is skewed in the second most annoying direction, being apathy with a superficial, performative veil of respect. Respect that evidently, as thin as it is, still involves sitting down to tea with him when asked. The way Martin turns back to look at him again makes Jon feel like he knows exactly what he's done - there's triumph smeared invisible across his face. It's not there, but Jon can  _ see  _ it. He grits his teeth again, "Glad you've decided you're in charge of whether I'm in a rush or not."

"Sorry." 

He's very not-sorry. He continues today's trend of being completely insufferable by pulling his coat off of his shoulders and draping it over an arm and giving Jon a jerk of his head to gesture him up the stairs, back into the big, empty room.

Martin is passable at facial expressions, Jon has decided. To say he isn't completely and utterly awful at it isn't much of a compliment, nor would saying he was good at them be one, either - bits and bobs that convey emotion in conversations are easy enough to pick up, like pitch of voice. It's not hard to memorize the contortions of lips or brows. Maybe Martin doesn't even appear as though that's what he's doing to other people - maybe Jon's careful study and recompiling is what lets him know - but when he looks down at him and gives him a tight-lipped smile, it's almost like it's meant to be an apology, some consolation, some offer of camaraderie, but it's empty of those things. Jon hardens his gaze and tries to catch Martin's eyes before he turns away, but he's been caught, and he retreats toward the staircase.a

Elias had said through him that he'd be down soon, but even as they climb the stairs, he shows no rush to meet them. It's one of the many little things that make Jon bristle. Can't understand why he doesn't just do what he says he will. Maybe if they'd all met downstairs there'd be a quicker escape route:  _ “I think I hear some children outside, better not let them get to the horses.”, “Actually,  _ Elias _ , Peter had wanted to see me, so-.”, “I think it looks like it's going to snow again, better get on with it.”... _ And then all he would need was ten steps and he'd be out the door. No time for voices to call after him, no time for Martin to think any better of continuing to be a lost, ragged dog - he would be following right in his footsteps up and out, undoubtedly. No, instead, they just  _ have _ to go and get comfortable. Jon has to see Elias standing at the top of the stairs, standing against the improvised stove set onto the stone wall and he has to see him give them both a nervous smile.

He can tell it's nervous because he also has to see Elias make the slightest second of eye contact before he looks back down again at his kettle.

The room doesn’t look like much. It isn’t meant to - the kitchen, and most of the rest of the quarters, are unlivable for someone without Elias' endless talent. It's ridiculously hard to live in when he's not around to do even the most basic tasks. It's not meant to be a home, as the place is meant to be one of worship. The walls are stone and bare. The floors are not meant to have furniture upon them, the halls too thin and too tight, the rooms too small and cold.

Elias has a bit of a workstation carved out here and there, though - the cupboards that have been made and fastened just above a comfortable height for Jon to reach are decorated with deep intricate grooves of runes, and the hollow above the wall-carved countertop has been scorched with magical fire where it’s often conjured and utilized, the ceiling contains a variety of slightly-green motes that crawl like moths across the stone, bobbing just above where Elias' height usually scrapes. As soon as Martin rounds the top stair, they lift higher into the air to stay above him as well, giving the floor an eerie, inverted caustic network look, like they're deep underwater, with only shreds of darkness seeping between the little blossoms of light.

"It's been a little while. How are you, Martin?" Elias waves a hand. They've only had a table in the kitchen since Jon was fifteen and he decided it was absolutely necessary after seeing them in the castle, and he still apparently  _ has  _ to refer to it in grand gestures. Martin takes a seat at it, setting his coat over the back of a chair, giving a polite smile even though he had been sitting at a grand table meant for parties and feasts, carved from glorious hardwood and decorated with rare stains just this morning.

"Ah, fine," He says, voice ringing hollow.

"Would have liked to stay home, I'll bet." Elias' kettle only gets a wisp of a noise out before the flame dies out entirely. He doesn’t even have to move a hand or say a word. Jon’s not sure if he’s always this much of a show-off or not, but it certainly feels forced, specifically tailored to Jon’s embarrassment.

He switches his gaze to Jon again and gestures vaguely to the other seat. Jon only stares. Elias gives him a slightly more...  _ persuasive _ , sort of look, and Jon finds himself pulling the chair out and settling into it.

"It's been busy. I'm alright out here," Martin gives Jon no sympathy, not even a look, keeps his eyes on Elias as he fishes through the cupboards. It's a miracle they have enough teacups for three. “It’s been a little while since I was out and about, anyway, what with the weather, and-”

"We were a bit busy," Jon interrupts but finds that his tone is much more polite than he'd intended it to be - and gives a silent sigh of resignation, hands in his lap as he watches the motes' inverted shadows wobble.

"Oh. I'm sorry." Elias pauses and looks over the two of them, "Thought it might be nice to see you while you are around and feeling well. Glad you made it on time. Vaguely."

Jon clears his throat.

"Your age doesn't determine your schedule." Elias pours Jon's first. Jon isn't sure whether it's diplomacy, or he's making some other point. Either way, Jon only lets it sit in front of him. Even in the greenish light, it's just off-purple - more blue than red - and pungent. Not dangerous, he's been drinking it since he was young, but he's never had it anywhere else. The sprig settled in the bottom of the translucent liquid has irregularly shaped leaves, pale, almost white against the dark cup. Book after book refrains from identifying the plant it's from. He has tried.

Elias sets a cup down in front of Martin, who is equally as unsurprised, but turns to Jon for confirmation, to which the latter raises his cup to his lips. It doesn't have much flavour other than  _ bitter _ . Tremendously strong and penetrating. Martin follows.

_ Very  _ princely is his slight grimace. He does, to his merit, continue to drink it.

Elias sits down and turns his eyes to Martin only for a moment before Jon's faithful companion turns his eyes tea-ward and does that  _ thing _ that Elias does to people, where he stills so much that he may as well no longer be there with them. He turns back to Jon.

"I'm serious," He says, his voice less strict than it is… Concerned.

"I forgot."

"Right,” Elias says, sceptically, “Jon, you  _ know _ how it feels. I don't know why you would do that to yourself when you can just come right home and fix it. It doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No."

"I don't make you, do I?"

"Not really."

"And you feel better afterwards, don’t you?"

"That's not the point. The point is that I  _ forgot _ ."

"How can you forget when - when every moment is... I don't even know how you made it down here. I was convinced I would have to go up and retrieve you. It hurts, Jon, and I don't want you to feel like that, but I don't want you to be trapped here. I just want you to stick to a schedule so you don't feel awful. That's harmless of me, isn't it?"

"It does get you into a mood," Martin suddenly says, and Jon nearly jumps out of his skin, because he shouldn't be able to hear them, let alone speak back to them. Elias seems unsurprised - must have let go of him. Jon feels frustration curling his fingers into his palm. Not for the reason to form a fist, although that is a boon - it’s so he can jam his fingernails against the flesh of his digits in rhythmic patterns. Bit nicer than bouncing. 

The space between Jon's skin and his muscles fills with ice water and he squirms with both sets of eyes on him. It is entirely intentional, he can feel the daggers. "I don't know what it is. It's alright that I don't know! But -... Ah," Martin suddenly seems dismissive and particularly appreciative of the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup, his voice lowering slightly as he suggests, helpfully, "I can help keep track."

"You certainly could," Elias's voice layers very neatly over top of Jon's baulk of "No, you could  _ not _ ."

"I don't have to!” Martin says, pulling both palms around his teacup, hiding it from the rest of the table.

"No, I think that's a great idea." Over "You really can't."

Jon snaps between Martin and Elias, rigid in his seat. Elias meets his eyes for all of a moment before he flickers away into his cup, still with a steely reserve but without as much desire to intimidate - and whatever he had keeping Jon in the chair breaks and he stands, the four wooden legs making an awful noise as they’re cast across the stone away from him.

"You will not send  _ Martin  _ to take care of me like I’m a child!"

There’s undoubtedly some sort of excuse to follow, but Jon isn’t having it, he blocks it out entirely, and Elias’ voice fades into a sputter. The chair is out of vicinity to be kicked, so Jon storms off instead. Really, seems a bit better, actually - it lets him pretend he’s being professional in some capacity, "You know where I’ll be if you need me." 

This means different things to Martin and to Elias respectively, he hopes, and wastes another goddamn spell on getting the twelve-tonne door open. Cold, wet, disgusting. Admiral is covered in muck and has been kicking around in the mud under the snow when Jon plods all the way back to him. Without assistance it takes a failed attempt or two to hop into the saddle, but he makes it, and nobody’s watching, so he survives. Chivalry pays no attention at all as Jon and Admiral plod their way back into town. Chivalrous of her.

~

It’s so much nicer to have Sasha working than Tim. This has always been Jon’s opinion, but it’s being exacerbated today.

Tim is currently in the middle of raising his voice to a yell, hardly containing his laughter, while Jon throws himself over the pub counter. Tim fails in his attempts, nearly falling over with the same energy as held by Jon when he nearly lands on his face. Sasha at least would have some chance of coming to his aid instead of crying with waves of cackling as Jon picks himself up off the floor - or, better yet, she would have told him the moment he’d entered the building that he was free to repossess his belongings from the back room at any time, so he desired, as long as he was of no nuisance, and could prove that it belonged to him.

Alas.

He wouldn’t have even had to jump the bar if Tim had just let him back there as it was, but apparently, it all turns out just fine for  _ him  _ \- he gets a show out of it. Prick.

Tim’s quick to turn from tears in his eyes to balled fists as Jon lifts himself off the floor with a curse, gently ‘navigating’ Jon away from the patrons and into the back room, knowing full well that Jon’s in a  _ mood _ , and there’s no way to get him out without having someone throw him out. This is a problem, as Jon has gotten out of his grip more than a few times before. What Jon lacks in strength he makes up for in the ability to slip out of whatever grasp finds him, usually. Be it because he’s squirrely or oily or other some such derogatory quality is unclear. 

Someone is making a bit of noise from the other side of the counter as, unlike the early mornings Jon usually spends in the building that are eerily empty, afternoons and evenings tend to actually have a person or two around to spend their coin.

‘’Excuse me?’’

‘’Ooooone second, just a moment,’’ Tim says over the top of Jon’s frustration and what is, thankfully, not entirely rage on behalf of a customer who had been sitting a mere arms’ length away when Jon had decided that  _ over _ the counter was his best bet in getting past it with the least amount of fuss. Jon is competent enough to know how to  _ open a door _ , and he does so, both to avoid being shoved into the wood and as a means to get to his destination before having it shut behind the two of them. Tim continues to cackle for a moment before he sputters to a stop and takes Jon again, uncomfortably, by both shoulders, using an unwieldy wingspan to encompass him in what could be a hug, or maybe a reinforced headlock.

“Before you say anything, you would not have let me back here without a great deal of begging or threatening, and I wasn’t in the mood,” Jon says, using both arms to pry Tim off of his person.

“Jon? Not in the mood to threaten me?” Tim shoves him again and Jon has to fight to keep his balance, raising both arms to combat him if needed, forearms crossed in front of his chest to keep him from being bowled over… Hopefully.

Luckily, Tim doesn’t take the action as a provocation and lets him survive another day. Jon relaxes, slowly, and begins his descent into the pit of focus required to dig through what started as a small collection of things, and has slowly grown into a makeshift library, among what years ago had been a neat little office with ledger books kept neat and dry and locked away.

Despite his combative tendencies, his ridiculous moods, and his frustrating and incessant desire to be as much of a roadblock as humanly possible while still passably being considered complacent, Tim has provided Jon with innumerable lifelines. A front door with a simple enough lock to magically open and close at will, which technically means the pub and Tim’s presence are always available if you squint, a personal room far from Elias’ prying eye, and, sure, on occasion, companionship, when blank looks and pitying countenances don’t exactly fill his desire for other people.

Though, Sasha is usually the main well for the latter in that list of rewards.

And all he has to do is spend his coin a little more freely than the rest of the patrons.

Being bastard-royalty has its perks.

“To what do I owe this fantastic mood and unmatched talkativeness? Is Martin on your heels?”

“Couldn’t be arsed to know.”

Tim whistles, low, and despite Jon’s intense focus on the bookcase opposite the door under the crooked wooden windowsill, he can hear him lay a hand on the doorknob back out into the pub, “Well, I’m  _ certainly  _ arsed to know what you’re on about, but I have work to do, like a normal person. If Martin comes in, I’ll come to get you, okay?”

“He won’t.”

“Woof, the breakup was that bad, eh?”

“Tim.”

“Right, right, okay. Seriously, though, don’t… screw with anything in here. I won’t notice if you fuck with the ledgers, but Sasha will.”

“Where  _ is  _ Sasha, anyway?”

Tim hums, thoughtfully, “Not at work, that’s for sure. Wish I could be miffed, but alas.”

Jon pulls a book from the case, and then another, and then a third, and begins to flip through their pages as he lowers himself with a grunt onto the floor, one leg crossed and the other flat on the floor.

“Tell her I’ve been when she comes back, won’t you?”

“Aw, you miss her, too? I think we should make her a welcome back card. Get on that, you’ve got the handwriting for it. Oh, also, Jon?”

“Yes, Tim.”

“Are you going to compensate me for my lost tips? I mean, since you barged in and vaulted over the counter like a madman, that is…”

“Sure, sure, later."

“Aye, boss.”

Click.


End file.
